What's Wrong with YouTube

There are two reasons why YouTube is a bad choice for where to post
videos or refer to videos.

Normal use of YouTube involves use of nonfree software.

In the HTML5 mode, it involves running
a nonfree JavaScript
program. For some videos, it also requires the nonfree Adobe
DRM software that has been incorporated into proprietary browsers
and Firefox, but not into the GNU browsers
including IceCat.

In the non-HTML5 mode, it involves use of Flash Player, which
is nonfree. It even tells users to install Flash Player. (This
mode is deprecated as of January 2015.)

There are ways to access most YouTube videos without running
that nonfree software — Users who are in the know can avoid
doing so. For instance, you can access most non-HTML5 videos
with
Gnash, and you can get most HTML5
videos with youtube-dl.

However, most users don't use these methods, so putting a video
on YouTube directs them towards nonfree software.

YouTube tries to stop people from downloading copies.

The developers of youtube-dl need to keep changing it as the site
changes. The mere attempt to stop you from downloading a
file is mistreatment even if you can overcome it.

One thing about YouTube that is not a moral strike against it
is nonfree software on YouTube servers — if there is any.
We as outsiders can't tell, because it wouldn't affect us, which is
why it is not an injustice towards us.

If there are any nonfree programs running on YouTube servers, they
mistreat Google by denying Google control of that aspect of its
computing. We hope that Google will reclaim its freedom by ceasing to
use those nonfree programs, if any. But those programs do not mistreat
the users of that service, so they are not a reason to refuse
to use YouTube.

Dailymotion and Vimeo have the same problem as YouTube's HTML5
option: viewing their videos requires nonfree JavaScript code. If
there is any commercial video-hosting platform that doesn't have this
problem, please inform us.

To post a video without requiring nonfree software to view it,
you can place the video as an Ogg or WebM file on an ordinary web site.
If you are concerned there will be a lot of download traffic, you
can seed a torrent and suggest people download through that.